Award-winning journalism teacher Patrick Brian Kennedy, 43, has been fired from his job at Prosper High School after being arrested in McKinney on Monday, Feb. 19, on a public lewdness charge.
WFAA Channel 8 reported Wednesday afternoon that Kennedy was arrested after an off-duty police officer saw him “engaged in lewd conduct” in the bathroom of a Taco Bell restaurant on Eldorado Parkway in McKinney. Records from the Collin County Sheriff’s Office indicate that Kennedy was arrested at 3:37 p.m. There is no indication in the records that anyone else was arrested with Kennedy.
Prosper Independent School District officials released a statement Wednesday saying that they had “investigated the situation” and that Kennedy was “no longer employed by Prosper ISD.”
“The district’s highest priority is the care and concern of its students,” officials said in the statement.
Kennedy had created a state-of-the-art broadcast journalism program at Prosper High and who in 2016 was invited along with his students to visit the set of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to watch how that show was run after a comedy show put together by Kennedy’s students caught Colbert’s attention. Kennedy was named KLAK-FM (97.5) teacher of the month in October 2016, and last fall, Kennedy was named the Journalism Education Association’s broadcast advisor of the year.
Kennedy has also, for the last several years, worked as a videographer/segment producer for DVtv.